Monthly Archives: October 2013

“The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore.”

The last session of Take Five saw a record number of participants. Actually, there were so many of us that the organisers tried to count it on at least three occasions, gave it up at least five times, and agreed on the headcount of 17 only days after the event due to a severe case of mass dyscalculia.

But fear not, dear takefivers, this strange memory lapse did not affect the actual happe-nings at the club. We had a marvellous time as usual: we were pondering what a llama’s first thought might be in the morning, we shared rather indelicate stories, we tried to ba-lance on chairs with dubious stability, we laughed like drains, and we reasoned like there was no tomorrow.

We also went into a longer than expected discussion on our weekly topic, which was X gender. The questions planned were as follows:

♦ What do you think of gender bending? (performing a gender different from what is bio-logically given)♦ Would you let your kid play with toys which are not stereotypically ‘meant’ for him/her?♦ What do you think of genderless education? What are your experiences?♦ Do you think Hungary should have an X gender on passports? (See Australia)

I bet just reading about it made you all hot and squirmy. Emotions and arguments certainly ran high: we debated the binary nature of biological sex, and tried to make sense of ungendered education and upbringing. Sadly time, that sneaky bastard, got in our way of creating the perfect society, so the organisers decided to bring this topic back in this season.

Since we got so absorbed in our debate, there was no time for games. We are planning to make up for it next week, so do try to be punctual next Thursday, because if you are late, you might just miss out on our new arrival games!

was the title for our season opening, referring to the foggy windows of Hungary’s brand new national tobacco shops. In brief: the government decided to centralize tobacco sales. As a result, you will no longer find cigarettes at grocery stores, supermarkets or news-stands. Only licensed “tobacconists” between the walls of specially designed stores are allowed to sell any kinds of tobacco products. Some (or all?) of the official reasons are: preventing the young from smoking and cutting down on tobacco trafficking.

For some, nothing has changed, and this might be the most senseless topic to talk about. But for others, the whole process of distributing the licenses, and the – more or less – well-functioning stores have raised questions.

“Where there are questions, there are take-fivers” as the saying goes… er… or something like that. Anyway, we collected the most exciting approches to the matter which the ever-enthusiastic group of visitors covered with dignity. We discussed the following (straight from the event description):

What do you think of the new stores?

Do you agree with all the aspects of the big change?

Is it a fight against illegal tobacco sales? Is it about preventing the young from smo-king? Or is it just political jiggery-pokery?

Apart from certain differences of opinion, we all agreed that this whole change is far from the romantic story of saving the poor youngsters from the devilish cigarettes. Although it wasn’t too much of a riddle to come to that conclusion, it was interesting to hear every-one’s thoughts and even some personal stories.

In the end, we played amusing games. If you want to take your share of the amusement, join us next week! Follow our Facebook page, so that you can easily find our events and stay up-to-date.

Just one more thing… If a club meeting begins at 6:00 pm, some people have the feeling that it is perfectly fine to be 20 minutes late, while the rest of us are just waiting, since we wouldn’t like anyone to miss a minute of the interesting conversation. We did a triple blind test with eyes wide open and noticed that if we shift the session to 6:30, people from the previously mentioned group will arrive at 6:50, accordingly. Therefore, the triumvirate of organizers have decided to reset the time of sessions to the original 6:00 pm. We promise not to make such mistakes in the future. God save the Queen!

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TAKE FIVE is a conversation club that gives you the opportunity to refresh, practice and improve your English every second week in the heart of Budapest. Spend three hours in the best possible atmosphere, where language development and entertainment are in perfect balance. Don't hesitate to join us!